


A Strawberry & Tutu Dance

by Mickychi



Category: Bleach, Princess Tutu
Genre: Bad Parent Kurosaki Isshin, Blame the vulpine void, Female and male Ichigo, Gender Changes, His kids made him go through it though, Hurt/Comfort, I however know next to nothing about dancing, Ichigo knows how to dance, Ichigo was denied therapy and that's not cool, Initial forced change of gender though so beware, LITERALLY, Like ability to change gender at will, Not Beta Read, Other world Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23441680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mickychi/pseuds/Mickychi
Summary: Stabbed in the back to get his powers back. No apologies for being practically abandoned and everyone's acting like it never happened at all. For them it was a few years, but for Ichigo it was much longer. Pulled into “The Prince and The Raven” and living through the reprise of the story, learning to dance for years, fighting for years. Ichigo will not fall back to what they expect. For him too much time has passed and now he has other priorities.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 96





	A Strawberry & Tutu Dance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RayShippouUchiha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayShippouUchiha/gifts).

> Well I hope your happy now Ray. You caused this. But you’re a beautiful vulpine void so I forgive you. I’m only up to when Grimmjow gets punished in the anime but I have read fanfics and your quips, so I have a rough general gist of events. 
> 
> Anyway, pardon any errors, of course the full bringer arc occurs differently in this. Not sure how because I haven’t seen it yet, but I know it happens differently.
> 
> Also, the time skip period was longer in this alternate verse. Ichigo went 2+ years alone, ignored before opening a book called “The Prince and The Raven”. At least another year happened after that in Karakura before he was stabbed. Maybe more the details are undecided. 
> 
> I owe neither Bleach nor Princess Tutu. Please enjoy and scream at me if you want to build on this verse.
> 
> I also know next to nothing about ballet or dance so yeah, correct any errors. And I watched Princess Tutu years ago, still loved it but it’s been years, so I referred to wiki.
> 
> Also warning I haven’t written in a while so this might be rusty, and this isn’t edited by a beta reader.

He clenches his fist, stepping back and breathing slowly. Falling into the shadows of the empty street without pause or eyes flickering his direction. Running his tongue against the edges of his teeth. He’s grateful, yes. Will always be grateful because the emptiness isn’t there anymore and yet, yet…

Sometimes he can’t stand them. Not anymore. His heart refuses to open itself up again.

They’re loud, chaotic and it’s too much and not enough and it no longer makes him comfortable the way it did in the past. The past him that rejoiced in the loud moments, the small arguments, and bantering that is the scene that continues inside the _candy shop_ behind him. The past him rejoiced in those moments because it was an easy-going thrum of energy that lay outside of battle. One that reassured him that his treasured people were safe and happy, and away from harm.

Now though? Now hearing the noise behind him even as he walks down the street, he cannot help but screw his eyes shut.

Do they even realize he left the room?

Ichigo doesn’t want to admit he ran away from the situation because he didn’t. _He didn’t._ He’s allowed to remove himself from any situation that makes him uncomfortable. He’s had that twirled into his head until he no longer could hold back barfing. It was gross, is still gross, but it was a point made and then repeated until it stuck and Ichigo has never been so relieved that the lesson stuck.

Still going to get revenge eventually for the fact the lesson had to often end with him racing to the bathroom giddy, on seemingly disjointed feet though, that’s not a question of if, it’s of _when_.

He supposes he still mourns the situation though. He’s a protector, _he will always be a protector _but if it came down to a priority list, even he knows now that some of the people who are still partying at the shop will no longer qualify for the top positions of his list.

It hurts that knowledge, but so does the fact that they left him alone for years. Floundering, wavering, _abandoned_. Just because he wasn’t strong anymore, because he made a sacrifice for them. Instead of just sidelining him, they completely removed him from the league.

Never will he forget that.

Especially when after the sheer relief of being whole again died down did the knowledge that they basically reverted to acting how it was before. Like the years of loneliness were irrelevant.

It will never be the same again. Ichigo knows that’s a fact. Maybe it will get better but never the same because that foundation of complete trust has crumbled and was left to rot.

They probably don’t even know it but in that time, the period they shoved him to the back of their minds, new hard-won foundations were built. Built over the ruins of the old, the decayed and forgotten and the new foundations flourished in a way the old never did.

Yes, _goddammit_, it was through some otherworldly – _literally otherworldly_ \- magical bullshit because that what it always seems to incorporate for Ichigo.

He is still going to punch the loony certifiably deranged – _fucking ghost_ – puppeteer in the face again despite the dead, but not Shinigami style dead status.

You don’t _fucking_ force others to live out a story for any sort of sick entertainment.

Ichigo will punch the next, no any bastard that gets his kicks from forcing others into doing things they don’t want to, for whatever reason in the face, _repeatedly_.

Aizen was more than enough of a lunatic that should never have been Ichigo’s responsibility to deal with in the first place. And even though Ichigo was never supposed to be a part of _that deranged puppeteer’s_ narrative, the sociopathic way he treated his “characters” despite knowing full well they were actual people pulled in from multiple worlds or places to play a character disgusts Ichigo to his core.

Sure, Aizen was a megalomaniac, twisted in his desire with a penchant for mind games. But at least that desire Ichigo is sure started from something rebelling against a system set up wrong, only to lose themselves in madness. With the puppeteer author though…

Sheer power capable of twisting a world and stealing others to populate it, with no regard for nothing unless it makes a good story.

Ichigo would very much like to punch in the ghosts face again. The story “The Prince and The Raven” hit far too close to home despite the differences in circumstances and the technical difference between missing shards of a heart compared to parts of a soul.

It also doesn’t help that Ichigo despite the madness sort of owns the bastard. Actually, no, _just no_. Murder that thought. The only thing Ichigo owes the bastard is another punch in his dead face.

Ichigo’s rebirth in that world, even though it was in a different body, which was unnerving at first but Ichigo had things to get done so he/she adapted, birthed new parts of Ichigo’s soul. Which for the record, _fuck it!_ He is never telling the Shinigamis _that._ Because the discussion of yeah, I was missing two thirds, but this mad raving experimental puppeteer author rebirthed me after accidently pulling me into his sick twisted story basically bolstered my soul to roughly around two thirds would never go over well.

He’s not going to hide it exactly, but he certainly doesn’t trust them enough to outright display the fact that he’s now has multiple zanpakuto, or beings akin to zanpakuto because he never got a clear answer exactly what they are now but they’re each similar enough and yet two of them are different. Especially since two out of three of his new ones will be recognised and feared. Ichigo will not stand for that, they can try to part him from them but Ichigo will not take that standing down.

Not like last time when he wasn’t even told the consequences, the sacrifice he – instead of one of the many other Shinigami that had years on him – never really got the choice to make because _no one told him_. 

For the matter neither will they let themselves be separated from Ichigo. They will burn the world/s before that happens.

Yes, Ichigo has issues. No Ichigo will not be forgetting them any time soon. A mixture of spite, pride, whether it originated from his masculine or feminine side or both and sheer distrust will not let him forget.

Ichigo honestly believes forgetting is dangerous. Because what else will it cost?

Regardless, back to the point Ichigo was sucked into a messed up to the hundredfold story, in which it’s infinitely messed up creator took one cackling look at Ichigo, a character he never intended to draw in in the first place and decided to send Ichigo back in time in the story itself, if only out of morbid curiosity to see the rippling effects and desire for the story to continue a little longer. 

Ichigo had been pulled in mid-way, fumbling over his own two feet stuck in a daze of fragmented patchwork, a patchwork which he had to sow himself since no one else bothered to. He had made it to just after the climax, if only because the rage ignited in his heart at the situation, _the story’s setting_ cleared his head somewhat to kick him into action, instead of inaction. The flying chariot had flown off, but the heroine was left a duck, her knight with no plans of deserting her and Ichigo had ached for that sort of relationship, the degree of trust and loyalty that no one thought he was worthy of. Then he had to watch as cracks appeared, suddenly in a clock tower, filled with clock cogs and pieces that should have been broken, and that man’s cackling laughter still haunts his ears as the clock rewind, gears turning in reverse. 

Ichigo had woken up younger, far younger, slimmer, with falling locks of his eye-catching hair vivid against his face and reaching far down his back, pooling on the bed he, _she_ was laying on.

So, waking up a different gender was weird, but the whole spirit jumping out of his human body had sort of half-heartedly prepared him for sudden changes. Of course, it was still hard at first, so different, not just in being an age he only remembered tumbling over his own feet trying to manage the household after the loss of his Mother, when the twins needed some semblance of normalcy, and they couldn’t rely on the only other adult in the house because that man sealed himself in the clinic and didn’t come out and the eldest child, - _he was only a kid and he was mourning -_ had to step up to sort shit out.

Too many times did Ichigo catch herself thinking of the twins, casting glances and wondering from room to room. Searching for any trace of her living family, - the ones they considered true family - because where were they? Didn’t they need her? Before she remembered the absurd reality, they were in.

Overall the change of gender didn’t matter much. Ichigo couldn’t care less if she was a male or female, or neither for that matter in the end. It didn’t change the fact that they could kick butt and take names, that they weren’t helpless, no matter how they looked. _No matter what others thought_. There were much more important matters to take care of. Namely punching a sociopath in the face because what had he done? Too many had suffered his narrative already and it was high time for the ghost to put down his bloodied pen.

The ghost author likely wouldn’t even care whether he wrote with ink or blood. Oh, he would know, of that Ichigo had no doubt. The fucker though wouldn’t care less what he was writing in.

_Not unless the story wasn’t tragic enough for his liking._

What was comforting, that made it so much easier to adjust was the fact that Ichigo felt more together than before. Soul no longer as torn, still torn of course but no longer as empty. Even the parts still empty weren’t just _gone_. A tentative thread was present, connected, Ichigo couldn’t reach it but it was no longer gone altogether. That counted for something.

Ichigo broke down crying as soon as she realized it wasn’t just a phantom pain. Zangetsu wasn’t there yes, but a small connection was and _god that meant Zangetsu wasn’t completely destroyed_, that Ichigo hadn’t sacrificed them into nonexistence.

It didn’t become apparent that Ichigo’s soul was more changed than just that faint connection till the next morning. Ichigo uncaring for anything but the connection just being there cried themselves to exhaustion overcome by the feelings they had bottled up for too long and for once wasn’t awoken by nightmares.

Of course, the next morning brought about confusion in Ichigo’s soul scape. A figure he knew that should have been dead without their cruel undeserving master. Another in a toddler like shape reminiscent of a certain toddler-looking green haired doll with a drum Ichigo knew, but obviously wasn’t because Ichigo could never get that presence confused with anything no matter how similar looking.

Ichigo did want to know what the damn glowing sphere was doing in their mindscape though, because _the fuck shouldn’t you still be absorbed in a certain megalomaniac’s chest like out of power or some shit?_ _Why the fuck, are you here? Also, how?_ The brat had the gull to giggle at Ichigo’s confusion, body not much smaller than Ichigo’s own at that moment because _fuck I’m somehow nine of all bloody ages again._ Slightly smaller than before of course due to the change of gender. Still the glowing orb brat freaking giggled, clapping hands at Ichigo. It was so confusing. The taller figure, much taller than Ichigo last saw tried explaining to calm Ichigo, who was just so confused, down. A third figure watched from far above on a skyscraper, at the edge of Ichigo’s perception but out of sight, not to be fully introduced to Ichigo until later as she wasn’t fully formed yet.

Whatever the ghost author did by turning back the clock, allowed the glowing orb to pull at Ichigo’s desire to be not be alone anymore, to be able to fight against the shitty narration. To reshape Ichigo’s soul using its remaining power but only to a degree because it wasn’t Ichigo’s original world. So, it could only repair so much, namely the parts it had access to.

The fact that meant more concretely anchoring their being and combining it into Ichigo’s was something Ichigo wasn’t going to think about. Because, _what the fuck was his life? Did she emit some crazy attracting odour or something? _

Ichigo would like to think they were still sane despite the blistering mind fucking chaotic mess that a lot of the time seemed to be the normal operating style of Ichigo’s life.

Can he please unsubscribe to this life channel? No? Well fuck you.

Back to the present, Ichigo had been walking on auto pilot. Not to the Kurosaki residence because Ichigo moved out over a year ago. Unable to stand the atmosphere after regaining a semblance of dignity from his world hoping experience, jolted back to the maddening experience of people that treated him like something fragile and yet did nothing to help. Not one acknowledgement or serious conversation, just strained smiles and pity in the depths of eyes never hidden well enough. Or _worse_, a complete over the top buoyant display that deserved a place within the circus, with eyes that held no remorse.

_More evidence of the little love existing there in the first place. Your actions speak loudly. Your silence screams._

Ichigo made damn sure in the other world to get the kids to fucking sit down and spill their hearts out, once they were comfortable of course, because he would never by force, but because they all needed therapy after what they went through.

The reprise of the story was bloodier than the first time, more vicious to the increasing number of souls tormented because it wasn’t just Ichigo sent back in the story. The story stretched, it reshaped itself to be more blood-stained. They made it to the ending only to find another story had been written in on a whim. By that time fragments of memories of the first run of the story had surfaced, so young minds – so much younger than Ichigo’s because she had the full recount of the years if some parts were a little blurry and memory of swords dancing in the midst of war – were jarred and tormented to see what once was at least somewhat of a peaceful ending be denied to them.

Ichigo still double takes whenever he sees a bird apparently staring. Certain wing patterns, colours, or specific specifies will trigger a sense of distrust and he’ll always look the avian in the eyes searching for a glimpse of madness. Or humour, or anything because there are many types of tainted emotions that are not to be trusted in the eyes of something that _could_ take sick pleasure in devouring others.

If he has a picture of crows, with the eyes cut out – _because he is not giving them even a remote chance of spying_ \- that’s littered with little holes from darts then Ichigo would like to clarify that it’s therapeutic in nature. So, what if he’s considered printing off a picture of a Shinigami to take its place once it’s got too many little holes to stay on the wall? It’s therapeutic, a type of therapy to sooth his soul. Something that despite being a teenager and living through a war – _teenagers are still too young, still classify as child solders, practically infants compared to the years the undead had seen_ – was never given to him from the mess with Shinigami. Really, it’s not like it was the first thing any logical person would prescribe for a child solder. No, _not at all_. Really. But Ichigo should have known. Nobody is apparently logical in soul society, or in Karakura town for that matter. Maybe it’s the abundance of spiritual power gathered in the town that alters minds. Ichigo cannot stop the furrowed grimace his lips curl into at that thought. _Yikes. _

His makeshift dart board is due to be replaced soon. Any day now it’ll likely fall to the ground in tatters. He’ll replace it of course because it’s therapeutic and Ichigo has no doubts that he’ll need it. Especially in the coming days as his patience is likely to thin too quickly with expectation forced onto him likely under the impression, he owns them something for giving back his powers.

They would have returned. That Ichigo knew as soon as he finally made it back. Only once it was assured, he could go between the worlds and he wouldn’t be cut off. His newer spirits, which due to the twisted passing of time between the two worlds, he has spent more time aware of than his first two but doesn’t diminish their importance one bit.

He’s overjoyed that their back. That he can now see them, talk to them and sense them at all times in full, no longer relying on a strained tattered connection.

It doesn’t change the unease, the lingering sense of _what do they want now?! _

Do they want to throw him into the deep end, with no lifeboat that would let him on within swimming distance? Do they want him to sacrifice his soul for them again? Ichigo won’t. It’s his soul, they were never entitled to it in the first place.

His kids and friends. Because yes, he’s a goddamn mother hen and he’s not ashamed of it in the least. Never mind the fact that he only appears a few years physically older than they appear, his total age puts him well past the minimum adult age, because life could not be simple and the damned puppeteer thought it would be poetic for Ichigo to be reborn as something not quite human and thus age slower than humans.

_And torment him with many years to wait for the story to begin._

Not that Ichigo was completely human in the first place, but once upon a time he thought he was. His spirits were his greatest comfort adapting to the slight change that lit underneath his skin. Change that grew and brought more changes once Ichigo grew older in the body they have grown into. Especially his newest addition. Born from the change Ichigo underwent in rebirth, a completely brand-new fragment of his soul in accordance to the world he was pulled into through a book of all things.

Human or not his kids and friends – _hard to trust at first but they wore him down and then they stayed_ \- didn’t care. In return for making them sit down and ply open their fears, their grief, all their emotion that they needed to work through instead of push down and let fester, they in turn made Ichigo sit down and admit he needed therapy himself.

It helped that they didn’t write him of as crazy. Not when he finally admitted that he was pulled into the world where sick marionetted stories took place. Neither when he revealed he was then forced back in time, nor when he admitted what he was still recovering from before being pulled in.

They were not please at all to hear what he had been through. Sick to the stomach, eyes filled with tears and rage over his behalf and Ichigo couldn’t force himself to even pretend being angry at the pure destruction their anger brought despite the repair bill that followed.

They listened and he was seriously afraid they would call him inane, broken to the point of madness.

They listened and that was all that mattered. And they stayed. _They stayed._

In this world though, no one tried to sit him down. They left him to fester, to stew in the aftermath of war that cost him two-thirds of his soul, _his not theirs, why his?_ No one here wanted to listen. Even if he wanted to - which by the universe Ichigo wanted - he couldn’t seek help for himself. Not when help could only come from those in the know, those who knew the afterlife personally. Had he gone to someone else he would have no doubt been diagnosed with schizophrenia or something else.

When no one would meet his eyes did they really think Ichigo wouldn’t feel the discord? That he wouldn’t be confronted by it? Angered by it? Betrayed by the act of ignoring him?

_Left him to rot. Left him to burn himself out. To feel ashamed of his sacrifice._

And now they wanted to gain back a place in his nesting grounds. Ichigo laughed, more of a feeble short huffing sound, teetering on the edge of what the human voice box could produce. Misting cold air in front of his face. The _irony_.

A hooting sound reaches his ears, but he continues walking. Ichigo has no problem with Owls, they leave him alone, he’ll leave them alone. Or if needed he’ll approach, and an agreement will be established on equal height. That’s all there is too it. Therefore, while Ichigo may not be too bad at the Owl’s dialect, that hoot is what sounds to be a commonplace call, akin to a greeting or something of the sorts. Nothing to worry about and nothing directed his way.

A new poster can be worried about and found later. Ichigo had arrived at his destination. A large older dojo styled building, with multiple interconnected halls, two stories tall, then two circular towers three stories tall amid a small forest area. It lay on the outskirt of Karakura town so Ichigo literally was no longer in Karakura town, a selling point for the place really. Something his instincts demanded. One of the reasons, among it being in a relatively reclusive location, he went for the place. The other selling point being the lake/river than ran behind it, complete with an off-skirt pond garden area with two vivid red bridges.

In other words, the property was large enough for children to be comfortable and to have all the space they needed away from prying eyes.

The garden area was a work in progress, the bridges a priority fix, wildly overgrown when Ichigo bought the place, but it was still relaxing. It had enough room for an outside clearing, in front of more trees, across the river that was still on the property where Ichigo could run through warm up exercises bathed in sunlight.

Ichigo had bought it using money gained from certain items brought back from the other world, nothing dangerous but valuable and worth a generous sum.

Inside the dojo was mostly fully refurbished, with the tower’s additions to the building, nothing fancy but solid in structure, one hall was kept as a dojo, the other transformed into a bright dance hall. A huge mirrored wall included and dance railings for stretches. The rest was split between two floors, the second levels of the towers were combined with the third levels, all floors had height added. These areas were filled with multiple rooms, some simply empty and yet to be used or spares, and more lived in areas furnished and homely looking. Some items were bought, some altered, some of those attempts better left unsaid others a fond if funny memory. They – his spirits and himself - were still adapting being back in this world, and while Ichigo looked the age they should have been, they were older mentally, more powerful even than before.

Ichigo had spent a good few years after de-aging trying to make sense of things. He didn’t wake up in Gold Crown Town. She woke someplace else, and no one she asked happened to have heard of the town. _Fucking magic bullshit_ Ichigo was sure.

Ichigo knew one thing though, the story involved dance and Ichigo _craved_. Forced to battle to rescue others, pulled into a war and then a new world. Growing up with too many concerns hanging overhead, too much drowning guilt. There were years of quiet, eerily tranquil almost, so different to the dazzling, maddening and a fast-paced rush of desperation to survive, to come out alive. To make _sense_ of everything.

So Ichigo learnt how to dance.

It was different to the rough hack and slashing, clashing weapons and hurling super powered attacks at one another. It had proven to have power, different in nature but just as destructive, to be able to be combined with attacking and it was fundamental to the story Ichigo was pulled into. Something he had seen over and over, yet never lost its charm – except the crows dancing, - because _they could go fuck off thanks_ – and Ichigo unable to hide the desire was encouraged to pursue the desire by their new spirits.

It certainly helped that her de-aged body was strong and flexible. In _both_ genders.

And maybe that the third spirit she didn’t immediately meet when she woke was born part of the desire to dance and display her heart freely without regret, with some semblance of the ethereal grace it could entail. To take her emotions and perform them for the world to see in a graceful fuck you.

Ichigo was a protector though, eventually they made their way back, finding out along the way just how far in the past they had been sent, where she was, that she could switch between genders at will, where Gold Crown Town was and other shit situations that a deranged puppeteer must have been responsible for.

Slipping out of his jacket and shoes and putting on his ballet flats Ichigo began his warmup with the appropriate stretches, seamlessly moving between the five basic positions and working up to more advanced plies and pirouettes and more, letting his feet guide and body vent his frustration.

No music was needed, and he glided across the floor ready to move, to leap, twirl, spin, to bend and force his emotions out of his chest. Half an hour later, panting Ichigo took a break. All five of his spirits materialized roaming the house as they saw fit, Zangetsu, both sticking close and watching in silence.

Ichigo had broken her leg once, it had been devastating. She was useless _again_. 

It wasn’t a simple break. No, it couldn’t just be that because that would be too simple, too kind, instead it was one of the _changes. _A butterfly effect to the stories the deranged author created caused her to be powerless and while powerless she broke.

No more brawling to turn to, unable to dance, unable to protect, possibly unable to ever protect or dance again. It scared her shitless and she holed herself up in the bathroom, starring at the walls cutting herself off from the cries of her spirits. Cries that were distant because she was cut off and could barely hear them. She was _useless_.

Then the days went by and no one left her. They stayed. They openly talked to her, asking her how she felt, screaming just loud enough to get a reaction and it was difficult to muddle through the shock and trust that it wasn’t an illusion tricking her.

They stayed. They didn’t abandon her. Why? Wasn’t she useless now? They didn’t need someone useless so why did they stay?

The words slipped out and before Ichigo knew it she was cuddled from all sides.

They didn’t care. Her value didn’t matter in her usefulness to them.

They broke her. Broke her like they had never allowed themselves to be broken, a dam that raged for years burst open.

And now the ones that had fuelled that apprehension to trust, destroyed his spirit, diminished their value by their ignorant actions alone wanted back in his life.

Ichigo knew there was more to their side, guilt and hopelessness. Yet, it wasn’t enough. A small part had hoped it would be, that his eyes would open to their train of thought, for there to be enough of a reason. Maybe had they acknowledge the dreadful years he experienced, the anxiety, the pain, the loneliness in the smallest way possible… Instead of openly cheering, expecting for things to go back to how it once was like nothing changed in-between.

_Only if they knew how much had changed for Ichigo._

Maybe had they helped in their twisted way earlier, - which by the way honestly terrified Ichigo for a moment they were seriously stabbing him from behind – Ichigo out of pure desperation would have clung to the sense of belonging they offered that he’d been searching for before. But not after Ichigo had aged.

Ichigo had spent years in the other world, sent back far in time. Learning, living, meeting new people, things, _creatures_. Doing what they could to help, trying to help the victims that fought against the narrative any way he could. Some he saved, others he at least tried his best.

He had kidnapped a young girl when the crows started cawing about a change of heart, their leader debating her merits, whether she’d be better off in a way she wouldn’t be capable of betraying them this time if she was _too dead to try._

He searched for heart fragments of a Prince that deserved to feel alive, when whispers of the fragments being shattered into more fragments and further separated reached his hearing. Fought for the would be subjects of the Prince that had been attacked, chased into hiding from a Kingdom destroyed.

Searched for a method to prevent a duck from being rewarded for her determination and suffering with nothing, back to the life of a duck when even they could see a relationship building based on trust, a relationship worth fighting for that couldn’t flourish as a bird.

Searched for a way to help a Knight free his town and friends sooner. To end happy instead of wondering what he could have done to change the twisted legacy left to his blood.

Searched for a way to cut the strings sooner, derail the tragic undertones the author preferred to be played out by his characters, in _his stories_. 

Now back and older than ever Ichigo had grown. Had no patience or time to give for things they didn’t agree to that weren’t needed on only hurt. He had kids to look after, a life to live and other friends – _loyal friends_ \- that were set on cutting anymore strings and cursed writing machines left in existence along with dancing.

It wasn’t out of obligation or a sense of justice. Ichigo just really was pissed off by that deranged narrator. _You don’t fuck around and twist lives for your sick twisted amusement!_

Did he mention he also had dibs on punching a fucking ghost puppeteer in the face again if the chance ever presented itself? Because he totally had dibs on that.

As for the others that had left him _abandoned_. Well they had to learn to deal with that fact.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Yes, Ichigo kidnapped Rue. Then he raised her.  
\- Ichigo basically also adopted Ahiru, Fakir, and Mytho.  
\- Ichigo is less human than before. I’m thinking some sort of spiritual firebird, not quite a phoenix but damn close enough.  
\- The kids are all not quite human either honestly. So, they don’t age like humans anymore.  
\- Ahiru (Duck) is magically bound somewhat to the Hogyoku now, who can jump between Ichigo and Ahiru to help her when she wants to be human, she has time limits though currently.  
\- Rue was adopted by the crows but changed so she’s part creature and I’m honestly thinking some sort of interference by swans or owls for her to cure the hold the crows had.  
\- Fakir was never human exactly, and now he’s activated his ability he can never fully go back.  
\- Mytho, either due to the Raven blood his heart fragment was soaked in or he just wasn’t fully human to begin with, or something else. Prince of some magical land remember. Plus, his Kingdom was destroyed in the reprise so he couldn’t return.  
\- Ichigo now has five zanpakuto spirits or akin to zanpakuto spirits. Or four, with Zangetsu being one split in two.  
\- Hogyoku is shaped like a round dark shining blue jewel bordered by two curved feathers that overlap at the end, instead of weapon.  
\- In human shape Hogyoku initially looked similar to Uzura, a light soft shade of blue for hair, dressed in a similar top turned into a dress with pale purple instead of red, a butterfly print instead of flower, with dark blue almost black leggings instead of the striped pants Uzura has. The inside of the dress is a pale galaxy sort of mix of colours of black, purple and blue to represent the souls it was created from. From there the appearance changed somewhat not sure how. But is still childlike in age and temper.  
\- Hogyoku, Zangetsu (both), Muramasa and unnamed (female dressed in red, gold and fire whites who depicts some of the dancing ethereal beauty combined with a firebird image with wings made of fire)  
\- The firebird Zanpakuto spirit I’m imagining is a Rapier in weapon form or twin Rapiers. And in Bankai are more fancy Rapiers with chains made of feathers connected to folding fans like Phoenix tail feathers.  
\- Ichigo can understand the basic of most bird dialect, his female spirit helps him with this.  
\- Ichigo can switch gender, considers themselves genderfluid and regularly switches between pronouns despite which gender they currently are. Generally, the gender they were or are during an event is what they will be referred to.  
\- Ballet companies salivate at Ichigo’s leaps in both genders, because even without trying (or with the use of seals) Ichigo is stronger and more resistant than a regular human.  
\- Also salivate at their flexibility and thighs, no matter the gender.  
\- Somehow the Shinigami’s and co sees Ichigo’s thighs - who normally now covers himself up, because now trained with a dancer’s grace and toned body – and all blue screen  
\- This was supposed to be more comical and focused on dancing, but the Angst came at hit me with feels. Also I like know zero dance so there’s that too.


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